“Don’t look like there was too much of him left,” he remarked, and then, as he felt the eyes of Bubba and Mudguts turn on him, added quickly: “the poor bastard.”

  The Toecutter turned on his heel, grabbed the man’s face between his hands, pinching his cheeks between thumb and forefinger. He looked straight into his eyes.

  “The Nightrider,” he hissed. “His name’s the Nightrider.”

  The agent realised from the eyes in front of him that the Toecutter was capable of anything; like a child who could tear the wings off flies, the Toecutter would get a thrill of excitement out of hurting him, seeing him slowly twist in pain.

  “The . . . Nightrider,” he managed to enunciate through twisted lips.

  Deliberately the Toecutter increased the pressure between his fingers and simultaneously pulled the flesh away from the man’s cheekbones until the agent realised that his mouth was about to rip at the corners. Tears were stinging his eyes. A flicker of pleasure crossed the Toecutter’s face.

  “Remember him when you look up at the night sky.”

  The agent could no longer speak. His face was a blanket of pain and his mind a bed of fear. Somehow he managed to nod his agreement.

  “Good, I’m glad you understand the situation,” the Toecutter whispered as he relaxed his hands.

  “Now I want you to take that hat off.”

  “Sure, whatever you say.“ He swept the hat from his head and twiddled it between his fingers in front of his crutch.

  “That’s very, very good. Now get out of my sight, and tell the rest of the audience back there that if I so much as see them peep through a window, they’ll be joining the Nightrider. Except for the two sluts. Tell them we’ll be needing them later. Understand?”

  “Yes. Yes, I do,” he said as he backed off down the platform, bumping into Cundalini and being pushed roughly against Diabando. Recovering his balance, he turned around and scurried off, head and shoulders hunched, to hide in the depths of his office.

  Alone, the Toecutter walked towards the coffin. He stood looking down on it in a silent reverie. Minutes passed while the rest of the horde shuffled their feet and licked their parched lips. Finally the Toecutter turned and moved towards them.

  “We’ll go back and wait for the pick-up to arrive. You can’t have a funeral without a hearse.” His voice was cold and cruel. Those that knew him well understood that he was seething with a quiet, deadly rage. Without another word, he led them back to their bikes and, leaning against the saddle of his machine, stared down the road in the direction from which he expected the highly chromed pick-up.

  He was a man apart. While the others gathered in small knots along the road, talking and horsing it with each other, pulling on beer cans and throwing off their leathers, he was in another world. A demented world where fear and cruelty ruled, where hate was the god and destruction his servant.

  The Toecutter didn’t even notice when Mudguts and Clunk walked into the garage office. Mudguts found the owner in darkness at the rear of the building.

  “Where are the sluts, old man?”

  Almost with relief, he replied: “In the diner, I told ’em to wait for you.” Without another word, Mudguts turned on his heel and, grabbing Clunk by the arm, began to steer him out of the shop. The owner stifled an objection as Clunk grabbed a large, grey inflatable plastic elephant from behind the counter and carried it out into the street.

  “What do ya want that for, ya crazy?”

  “I never had an elephant before,” Clunk replied with the wide grin and slow speech which marked him as a simpleton. Mudguts left him to it and walked towards the diner. Clunk, carrying the toy under its front legs, walked into the middle of the street, placed it carefully on the road and began to stroke its head.

  Mudguts walked into the diner. The waitress, a full-blown woman in her late thirties with bleached hair and over-ripe breasts, stood behind the counter talking to a man of similar age. From his dress he was obviously the owner of the freight rig parked out the front. They looked at Mudguts, trying to keep all expression from their eyes. He scanned the booths and tables. At the back of the soiled, decaying room he saw the girls sitting and talking to two youths of about seventeen or eighteen. Arranging a sneer on his face, he walked up to them.

  “I’m glad you decided to wait,” he said, addressing the girls. They giggled a reply.

  “Why don’t you come outside and meet a few of the fellas.” It was more a command than a request, but they looked inquiringly at the youths.

  The taller of the two, a kid called Tom, was caught between fear of Mudguts and a desire to continue chatting up the two girls whom he had already assessed as easy lays. Lust overcame his anxiety and, trying to look Mudguts in the eye, he said: “I think we’re OK here thanks.”

  Tom didn’t even see it coming. Mudguts’ right hand, still encased in leather riding gloves, swept the level of the table top and backhanded him across the mouth, splitting his lip and rattling his teeth.

  “Still OK, boy—or would you like a little more unhappiness?” Mudguts spat out the words and Tommy’s friend, Bobby, didn’t make a move.

  The bikie was standing over them now, feeling the eyes of the waitress and the truckie on his back. Slowly he leaned forward to Judy, the girl sitting nearest him. When his face was above hers, quick as lightning, he grabbed the top of her skimpy halter-style t-shirt. He twisted it in his hand, tightening it across her shoulder blades and dragging it downwards over her swelling breasts until they popped out.

  Mudguts gazed down at her nipples. The girl stared at him in fear.

  “Now you’d like to come outside, wouldn’t you?” he said with a chuckle that left the girl in no doubt about what he had in mind. “I’m sure that the guys would like to see more of you,” he said with a leer.

  Her throat was dry. She made no reply. Mudguts twisted the fabric of her top even tighter in his hand until it bit into the flesh just below her breasts. He jerked her to her feet, pulled her out from behind the table and, while the truckie and waitress tried not to watch, began to pull her towards the door. Mudguts stopped when he had her several steps away from the table; Tom, licking and patting at his split lip, and the other two, Bobby and Mary, sitting absolutely still. Turning half towards them, Mudguts put the fingertips of his left gauntlet to his lips and pulled it off with his teeth. Standing with it still in his mouth, a smile crinkling the corners of his eyes, he grabbed Judy’s breast with his naked hand, kneading the flesh, feeling her nipples squashed against the palm of his hand. Slowly he increased the pressure of his hand until his finger nails were biting into her and he could feel her trying to squirm away with pain. The others watched with a mixture of fascination and fear. He let the glove drop from his teeth. “I think your friends would probably like to join us, wouldn’t they?” Mary felt her heart skip a beat. The three of them knew that it was an order. Any attempt to refuse would only bring Mudguts—and possibly some of his cronies—down on them. They got to their feet.

  Mudguts looked Mary up and down. “You,” he said, indicating Mary, “you’re not going to allow your friend to go out there all alone like this, are you?”

  Mary shook her head.

  “Good, that’s what we need, more co-operation round here. After all, it’s all good clean fun, isn’t it?”

  Whitefaced, she nodded her head.

  “Isn’t it, fellas—I mean you’re not upset or anything, are you? You tell Mudguts if you’re not having a good time.”

  “No, it’s fine,” said Bobby.

  “Yeah, great,” Tom said through his split and bleeding lip.

  “Well, that’s all straightened out then,” he said with mock relief.

  “What’s your name,” he said to Mary.

  “Mary.”

  “Well, Mary, as you said, you can’t let your little friend go out half undressed and all alone, can you?” Without waiting for an answer, he went on: “So why don’t you join her?” An edge of command crept into his voice. “Take your jeans off.”

  Mary stared at him. “You heard me,” he rasped.

  His eyes bored into her. Hands shaking, she began, reluctantly, to undo them.

  The waitress and the truckie didn’t move.

  She slowly pulled the jeans over her hips, exposing the tiny vee of the crutch of her pants to Mudguts’ leering face and, one leg at a time, awkwardly pulled the denim over her shoes.

  “Now give them to one of the fellas there; we’ll make him wardrobe mistress,” he said.

  Mary handed her jeans to Tom, who rolled them up to carry in his hand.

  “That looks a lot better. Now turn around.” To his satisfaction, Mudguts stared at her thighs and the shape of her arse. “Well, I think we’re ready now. There should be something here to please everyone, tits and bums. You two go first,” he said to the two youths.

  Side by side they walked out of the café and into the glare of the street. Their appearance was barely noticed but, seconds later when Mudguts appeared at the door, flanked by the semi-naked girls, a wild shout went up from a couple of the horde. Mudguts was smiling so much that his face was fit to crack.

  Attracted by the first shout, the rest of the gang began to cheer and whoop their approval.

  Mudguts’ appearance had disturbed a strange performance by Clunk in the middle of the road. Although at first he had been content to just stroke the plastic elephant, he soon hit on the idea of using the plastic animal as a make-believe lover. Much to the amusement of the large group of his mates who gathered around, he began to kiss its ears and tell it a string of loving endearments. Gradually he became more passionate in his embraces. He began to writhe on the ground with it, while several of the onlookers gave a running commentary on Clunk’s attempts at seduction. Advice flowed freely.

  Clunk was having a great time and was disappointed when, just at the moment it was obvious he was going to have his way with the elephant, by now on its back, Mudguts came out of the café and distracted the enthusiastic crowd. Nevertheless he persevered, despite the attraction which Mudguts and the two girls were offering to the beer-swilling bikies.

  Acknowledging the cheers of the gang, Mudguts instructed the two youths to walk towards the spot where Clunk was locked in the throes of passion. The girls moved closer to Mudguts as the clamour rose. He slipped his right arm around Judy’s shoulders and brought his hand to rest on her breast, cradling it in his hand and holding the nipple between his thumb and forefinger. At the same time he put his left arm around Judy’s waist, pulling her close to him, and slipped his fingers down the waist-band of her pants until he could just touch her pubic hair.

  By any account, Mudguts’ ingenuity and imagination had proved a winner. He was not only the centre of attention, but it was obvious from their expressions that he had gained their admiration. Any of the others would have just dragged the two girls out of the café and thrown them into the street. Mudguts’ decision to turn it into a titillating performance ensured that it would be a day to remember. For months, the horde would talk about the sight of Mudguts—led out by two frightened youths—appearing at the door of the café and walking across the main street of Jerusalem with a half-naked teenager on either side. The story would be embellished, exaggerated and improved upon until, for a while at least, Mudguts would be a popular folk-hero among the trash who rode the super-highways.

  Even Mudguts, who was not renowned for his sparkling intelligence, realised that he had brought off a major coup and he was enjoying it more and more by the minute. With the two girls locked firmly in position, he reached the outer edge of the crowd which had gathered to watch Clunk’s primitive love-making. He noticed with immense satisfaction how his comrades parted to allow first the youths, and then him and the girls, through to the front of the circle.

  As they walked through the bikies, Judy felt—rather than saw—hands come out and grab at her breasts. Rough hands were pressing and pulling at her flesh and fingers were squeezing her nipples. On the other side, Mary was having a similar problem—no sooner would she walk past one of the bikies than a hand, generally accompanied by a raucous laugh, would dive between her thighs and make a grab at her crutch. Finally, they were at the front and Clunk, relieved to find that he had not been completely overshadowed, began to throw himself into the ‘love-making’ with renewed enthusiasm. The four teenagers stared in astonishment at the grown man writhing on the ground, clutching an inflatable toy to his groin and ‘whispering’ filthy encouragements in its ear.

  Cundalini, standing next to them, turned to Judy. After an admiring glance at her breasts, he told her: “Poor old Clunk. He used to be an authentic genius until he went over the high side.”

  “He came through the other,” Mudguts continued, “but when they put him back together they had to use a metal plate to replace most of his brain.”

  “He’s definitely not like the rest of us,” Cundalini said with a laugh. “I mean who’d worry about screwing a plastic elephant when there are girls like you around—and available.”

  Moving closer to Judy, so that she could feel his leathers rasping against the flesh of her arm and smell his breath, he looked down at her and asked, “You are available, aren’t you?”

  Mudguts was watching the performance, by now fast approaching a climax, as Clunk rutted around in the street with increasing frenzy. Judy knew that he hadn’t heard Cundalini’s veiled threat.

  “Yeah, sure,” she faltered and then, as an idea struck her simple mind, she continued with more confidence, “but I don’t want all these guys. I’m not available to all of them, you know.”

  “Oh, I think you’d be surprised, little chicken. I think you’d be real surprised.”

  Cundalini turned to Mudguts and, in a soft, mock-solicitous voice, told him that Judy had made it clear that she was available. But not to everyone, mind. Mudguts roared with laughter and, before Judy knew what was happening, he had plunged his hand down her jeans and into her pants.

  “You’re right, Cundalini. I think you’re right,” he said.

  Mary, standing on the other side of Mudguts, was trying her hardest to stop another of the gang stroking her between the legs from behind. She couldn’t see who was doing it, but from the laughter in her ear it was obvious he was enjoying it.

  Finally, in the middle of the circle in front of them. Clunk gave a long low moan, separated himself from the battered toy and struck the attitude of a man exhausted. This brought cheers—and a shower of beer cans—from the audience, which now turned its attention on Mudguts and his newfound young ‘friends’.

  “Shall we go back to the diner, kiddies?” Mudguts asked, making no attempt to remove his hand from Judy’s crutch. “I think it’s about time we tested the availability of the model, eh Cundalini?”

  Cundalini gave a whoop and, turning to Mary—much to the delight of the onlookers—grabbed one of her breasts in his powerful hand and pulled her top partially down, exposing the other one to the hungry eyes of the gang.

  “Cundalini, you’d better bring the two boyfriends along—we wouldn’t want them to miss out, would we?”

  Cundalini turned towards Tom and, with no warning, smacked him with an open palm across his mouth, opening up his lip again and causing a small trickle of blood to edge its way down the cleft of his chin. “C’mon you two,” was all he said as he pushed Bobby and Tom in front of him. Mudguts and Judy were leading the procession across the street, Judy’s breasts by now were sore and red from the constant mangling they’d been receiving and her jeans were unzipped to the crutch. The two youths followed, behind them Cundalini and the almost-naked Mary, and then a group of about thirty or forty of the gang. All of them were prepared to make sure that they didn’t miss out when Cundalini and Mudguts, two of the Toecutter’s most trusted lieutenants, had finished with the girls.

  At the door of the diner, Mudguts turned to the rest of them and said: “You guys wait here—and just be patient. Cundalini and I are going to go in and see if we can come to some sort of friendly arrangement with the two young ladies and their boyfriends.”

  His little address brought cheers, jeers and laughter from the crowd, but it was the storm of beer cans that followed which drove the six of them inside. The waitress and the truckie had disappeared and Mudguts decided to go and search the toilets for them. He didn’t want some fool coming in and disturbing his fun.

  As Mudguts disappeared through the door Bobby saw his chance. Cundalini was standing at the window, drawing a hail of abuse from the rest of the gang and returning it with obscene gestures. Bobby grabbed Mary by the hand and dragged her towards the back of the diner, past the rows of tables and out through the back door.

  Judy, on the other side of Cundalini and Tom, standing several feet away and paying more attention to his lip than anything else, had been too slow to notice what had happened until they heard the back door slam and the bolt slide across from the outside.

  Cundalini swivelled on his heel, smashed his fist into Tom’s chest to knock him out of the way and ran for the door. It was too late. Bobby and Mary were already out of the store-room on the other side of the door and running for their lives across twenty yards of open paddock to Bobby’s hot rod, parked under cover of a small lean-to shed. Bobby threw himself into the driver’s seat and desperately fired the engine while Mary clambered into the passenger’s seat. With a squeal of rubber and a billowing cloud of dust, the lovingly customised hot-rod blasted out of the shed in reverse. As soon as he was clear, Bobby stood on the brakes, moved his t-bar shift into drive and, fishtailing across the paddock, accelerated—as fast as his heart was pounding—towards the open highway.

  Cundalini was already out of the front door of the café, closely followed by Mudguts, swearing and cursing the moment he took his eyes off the kids.

  “C’mon, catch that bastard in the hoon machine,” he called to the bikies he passed at a sprint.

  Cundalini was almost at his bike when he was stopped dead by a roar from the Toecutter. “Cundalini. Wait.”

 

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